


Moral Compass of the Heart

by Kasena



Series: Sweet Treats [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Magical Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-11-07 17:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17965109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasena/pseuds/Kasena
Summary: Harry wants to make a decision for himself. Draco wants to give himself a fresh start. Separately, they come to the same conclusion.Fic now extended and finished from original Drarryland prompt!





	Moral Compass of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Fic Prompt: Harry and Draco. separately, get the same tattoo from the same tattoo artist. A few of their mutual friends notice and get the wrong idea. Tattoo + Matchmaking AU - At least one section must be a POV other than Harry or Draco - Minimum: 385 words - Maximum 803.
> 
> Final Word Count: 807 words.
> 
> Art Prompt: Harry and Draco. separately, get the same tattoo from the same tattoo artist. A few of their mutual friends notice and get the wrong idea. Show the tattoo, and at least one panel depicting a character other than Draco or Harry.

#  Moral Compass of the Heart

Draco looked down at his arm with a sigh. He couldn’t much help it. With the summer months this year near blistering, even he’d been forced to wear shorter sleeved shirts. And it seemed when he rolled his sleeves up was when his fellow Cursebreakers-in-training remembered his exact role in the war. He watched with no surprise as a majority of them turned their backs on him completely. Those that didn’t averted their gaze from his arm, as though trying to forget that he had been on ‘the dark side’ during the war.

The Dark Mark wasn’t nearly so dark nor prominent as it had been during the height of the war, now a red scar across his pale forearm. It wasn’t so bright and angry as a fresh injury, but it was light enough to easily be seen. The figurative black mark on his record that would last the rest of his life. He rubbed his thumb harshly against the skin, watching his skin pale even further before the blood rushed back to it and left it pink, except for the scar. The action only left it white. Scars never healed. He would probably know best.

The lines he’d once upon a time drawn across his arm gave a similar reaction. He tried so many different things, and yet nothing could get rid of the Mark. He’d never even wanted to take it to begin with. And now he was stuck with it.

“Alright, Malfoy, we have a new practical for you. Here’s a Teddy Bear. Find the curse, and extract it.” Draco only nodded as they placed the bear on his desk. This was the only way he could make up for his actions, was cursebreaking. That would never be good enough for these people, though. He knew that much. He just wished he had never taken the mark.

Panting, Harry tried to brush his hair away from his forehead. He stuck his tongue out in annoyance when it stuck to his skin, though. Great, he was sweating, then. He hated when he sweat during training, it always meant he needed a shower afterwards. Feeling a pat to his back, he jumped and whirled around to see that it was just one of his training mates. “That was probably your best one yet, Potter!”

Harry gave a wry smile. “Thanks, Chambers.”

“You’re going to be the best one out of all of us, you know that?” Harry’s smile dropped as everyone else began to crowd around him, as well.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said quietly. He was nineteen, could he at least properly get through his Auror training before they all decided he was the best Auror they’d ever seen in their lives? There were plenty of people better than him, and plenty of them had died in the war.

Lexing stood next to him and laughed. “Just wait, in a couple years, he’ll be ordering us all around. Gonna be Head Auror by the time he’s thirty, I’d be willing to wager right now.”

“You think by thirty? I think by twenty-five,” another recruit laughed.

He knew it wasn’t their fault, but Harry still couldn’t help to make a face at all their boisterous bragging and gloating over him. Who ever said that he  _ wanted _ to be Head Auror? He just wanted to be Harry. Help catch the bad guys, and make sure other people didn’t have to go through what he had gone through. “How about it, Harry? I’ll bet Robards is gonna have you lined up as Deputy Auror the second you’re out of the academy!”

Ron stood at his side and laughed. Oh, Ron… “You kidding? Harry’s gonna be Head Auror in a year, I’m telling you. No one is gonna be able to match up to him! I bet he’ll even be Minister by the time he’s thirty!” As Harry made his way to the locker rooms, he huffed and shook his head. Even after everything, Ron still had to go and run his mouth.

Peeling off his clothes and turning on the shower water, Harry gave a rough bob of his head. Why couldn’t he just be like any other Auror? Staying on the force for probably a couple decades, pretty good records, but not anything amazing or perfect. But no. Just like he was back at Hogwarts, everyone decided they already knew exactly what he was going to do with his life just because he was Harry fucking Potter, the Boy Who Lived Twice, the  _ fucking Chosen One! _ Scrubbing his hair until his scalp felt raw, that was when Harry decided he knew exactly what he was going to do with his life. He was going to do whatever the fuck he wanted with it. Starting then and there.

Once he was out of the shower, Harry brought all of his equipment with him as he went to Robards office. He was done. He was finished with all of this. Knocking on the man’s door, he watched him open it with a sort of surprise. “Potter. What are you doing here? I thought you would have gone home by now, training’s done for the day.”

Harry nodded as he stepped into the man’s office. “And I’m done with training.”

At first, Harry saw the confusion spread across Robards’ face and he was ready to go on about every single thing wrong with their training, and his ‘partners’ but it seemed that realization dawned on him. “You’re not continuing your training.”

“No, sir,” Harry told him, putting all this Auror things down on his desk. “This isn’t what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.”

“Understood, Harry. You’ll be missed, you know. You have great potential. You’ll always have a place here, if you ever want it.”

Harry gave him another nod. “Thank you, sir.” And as he turned around, Harry felt a weight lift off his shoulders, and he grinned. This was his life. He was going to decide what he was doing with it, starting right then and there.

Draco smiled as he settled himself properly in his seat. “Luna, it’s nice to meet with you, again. I’m sorry I’ve been putting it off so much, I’ve been busy.”

“I know,” she told him, patting at his hand as the waiter walked over to set their drinks down, as well as Luna’s tart. “But you’ve been doing incredibly well, do you know that? I’ve been hearing plenty of talk about the good that you’re doing in your training. You’re surprising a lot of people.”

He smiled at her, and just nodded. “Thank you, Luna.” Luna was strange, but most days, her strangeness was charming, and lovely. “Though I don’t much care for surprising people. I just… I want to do some good. After everything I did.”

“Of course. You know that most people that truly matter have already forgiven you, though, right?”

That, though, they would have to disagree on. “I’m afraid there are plenty of people that matter that haven’t forgiven me.”

Luna just waved her hand in a flippant motion. “They don’t  _ truly _ matter, Draco. Your family and friends. They’re the ones that matter. Everyone else can be eaten by a hippogriff, for all we care.” Her words startled a laugh out of him, and he covered his mouth quickly, though she had seen his reaction, and was beaming brightly in response.

“I suppose, not… Luna, dear, what’s that?” His eyes were on her arm where it rested on the table. It was plain to see, with the short-sleeved shirt she wore. She couldn’t possibly believe he wouldn’t notice it.

She looked down. “Oh, this? I got it recently. It’s a tattoo. I got it in Knockturn Alley.”

A tattoo. His little Luna had gone and gotten herself a tattoo. How could she? Draco glanced at her, and after she gave him a little nod, he gingerly picked up her arm and examined it closer. It didn’t much  _ feel _ different from regular skin. He’d never really known someone to have a tattoo. The Dark Mark had been a brand, more than anything. “Did it hurt?” he found himself asking softly before he could stop himself.

“A little,” she told him. “Like many little Hadromimes biting you at once.” A hadromime. Right. Sounded like maybe a pinch, then. Hm. “She used magic to make it hurt less, which I was thankful for, all things considered. I could give you her name, if you’re interested.”

Draco thought it over before nodding. “Yes,” he said, still looking over the little pink flowers across her arm, each one gorgeous. “Yes, I think I’d like that.”

When Harry Flooed into the Burrow a couple days later, he was only slightly surprised to find Luna there, as well. It seemed that Luna and Ginny were much better friends, these days, than they had been back before everything. “Luna, it’s great to see you,” he said, still a bit in shock.

Luna, as she did everything, only took it in stride, and stood to greet him, wrapping him in a tight hug. “Harry, it feels like it’s been ages. How is everything?”

“It’s… Well, that’s part of why I’m here,” he told her with a weak grin. He pulled away from her to look at Ginny, and Molly and George. No Ron downstairs, huh? “Where’s Ron? I probably want him down here, too, before I tell you.”

Molly rose an eyebrow and gave him a mischievous smile. “Oh, big news, Harry? What is it, then?”

He unwillingly winced. “I  _ really _ think Ron should be down here before I say anything. He’s home, right?”

“Of course, dear.” Molly turned her head over her shoulder, towards the stairs. “Ronald, Harry’s here! He’s got big news for us!”

Harry listened to Ron come thumping down the stairs and he had to give a grin. Ron never changed. There was that, at least. Ron’s head popped out from the stairwell, and he beamed. “Harry, mate! What’re you doing here? Can’t even give a bloke a warning, huh?”

“Ron, you’re gonna wanna sit down.” Now he watched Ron’s grin change to one of bemusement. He waited until Ron was sitting, and he finally took a deep breath. “I’ve decided to quit the Aurors.”

Everyone seemed to have different reactions. George frowned, but he nodded, Ginny made a face like something stank, Molly’s eyes widened with surprise, and… Ron was starting to turn as red as his hair. “What do you mean you’re gonna quit? You can’t quit, we-”

Harry interrupted him, “I’m not going to, I already have. I turned my resignation into Robards yesterday.”

Ron looked about ready to start yelling about how Harry didn’t care for him as a friend, or some hogwash like that. It was never about that. This was about what Harry wanted to do, and he  _ didn’t _ want to be an Auror. Luna was the one to stand again, taking Harry’s hands in hers. “Well, I think it’s wonderful,” she proclaimed, loud enough to drown out anything Ron was starting to say, and making everyone stare at her. “What do you plan to do, now, Harry?”

“That’s what I’m wondering,” Molly huffed. “Now, I don’t blame you one bit for quitting, it’s a very difficult, very  _ dangerous _ career, but have you got something already planned out, Harry? You’re getting older by the minute, you’d ought to think about this carefully.”

He looked at them and shrugged. “I don’t know what I want to do yet. I figure I’ll probably help George in the shop until I figure it out. I don’t think I wanna have anything to do with the Ministry. That’s a lot more Hermione’s thing.”

Molly thought it over, and nodded, leaning back in her rocking chair. “I know you’re not wanting for money, but the work will help to keep you humble so you don’t go and get a big head. You may be the Chosen One, and you can end world hunger for all I care, but you’re still our Harry, and you’ve got to keep your feet on the ground, you hear me, young man?”

“Yeah,” he said, giving her a grin. “Yeah, I hear you.”

Harry finally sat himself down, looking to Luna, who… was sitting very close to Ginny, and… Holding her hand… “Wait a minute,” he said aloud, as he slowly put the puzzle pieces together in his mind.

Ginny looked down to follow Harry’s gaze to her hand on Luna’s lap. “Wait… You didn’t know?”

Luna looked between them. “What did Harry not know?”

“Apparently, he didn’t know that we were together,” Ginny snorted, apparently finding a great deal of amusement in the situation. “That’s been since about the beginning of seventh, yeah? All big and grown up and out of school, and you’re still pretty slow.”

“Hey,” Harry immediately began to defend. “I’m not slow, I just didn’t  _ see _ you two for a year, where you were still off at Hogwarts.”

“Alright, whatever you’ve got to tell yourself.”

Everything seemed to devolve from there into smaller conversations going on around him. Molly was chiding Ron for trying to convince Harry to come back to the training, and George was trying to convince him that Harry at the shop full time would be great, and at first Luna and Ginny were talking about how they’d been together through their seventh year, but Harry wasn’t really listening. He was more focused on the tattoo he now saw on Luna’s arm. “Luna,” he began. “Where’d you get that?”

Luna startled. “Oh- This? A nice artist over in Knockturn. Funny, you’re the second person in the past couple days to mention it. Watch this, though.” He watched as she held her arm out gently, before swaying it and shaking it, and… And the petals on the tree of the tattoo seemed to fall down her arm, fading away entirely before appearing back among the branches. It was a magical tattoo. “Her name is Solstice. I can give you her address if you like. I think you’ll particularly like her.”

Harry gave her a funny grin, tilting his head. “Why me specifically?” Instead of answering, Luna hummed and took a quill and some ink, scratching the address against his hand.

“There you are.”

Staring down at the address, Harry thought about it. A tattoo. To be frank, he  _ hadn’t _ thought about it before, but now that he was thinking about it, he decided he liked it. He liked it a lot. “Thanks, Luna,” he managed to remember to tell her as he stood. “I think I gotta go. She takes drop-ins, right?”

Luna smiled at him and nodded. “Right. Good luck, then. And tell him I say hi.”

“Sure.” Luna was so odd. Tell who hi?

Draco looked over the building, and wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. In the sun, it seemed to gleam, as though it were made of steel or iron, or something similar. There was a large window to allow one to see into the parlor, but it appeared that it was empty. Maybe they weren’t open? Still peering into the window, he reached for the handle of the door and startled when his fingers came into contact with something decidedly softer, and much warmer. He looked over, and his eyes widened. “Malfoy?”

“Potter?” Seemingly impossible, yet there he was, his hand outstretched towards the door as though he were about to go inside. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he laughed, giving Draco a grin. “I’m here for a tattoo. I never took  _ you _ for the type, though. That’s what you’re here for, right?”

Standing himself up straight, he let himself look over Harry with a cold sneer. “I am.”

“Cool.” That was it? That was all he had to say? He opened the door, forcing Draco to follow him into the building. He frowned at seeing there were what appeared to be medical tables in the room, and machines he hardly had a single idea about.

“Ello there, lovelies! Solstice. Come on in, then, don’t be shy! Just one of you, or am I doin’ a double, today?” Draco couldn’t help but to glance to Harry. She couldn’t be serious. This was the tattoo artist that Luna had recommended?

Harry quickly shook his head. “No, no, we’re not together.” But his eyes were wide, like he’d seen a ghost. What on earth could cause some kind of a reaction like that?

She looked them over before shrugging. “No skin off my teeth. Alright, you already know what you want?”

Draco gave a shake of his head, glancing to the wall full of designs. “No, not entirely.” The woman walked towards the counter, and pulled out a binder.

“Alright, I’ve got this, if y’all wanna go through and look for something. Just call me whenever you’re ready.” Harry pulled the binder and looked through it, Draco frowning and having to lean over his shoulder to look at it. He wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted, but he would know it as soon as he saw it.

Harry flipped through the pages fairly quickly, but Draco couldn’t find it in himself to argue. He agreed that they weren’t right. There was a page he stopped on, and they were full of compass roses. Hm. That… That could work. In unison, the two put their finger on the same design. “That one.”

Draco pulled away to frown at him. “What?”

“Hang on, are you saying you’re getting that one?”

“Yes, why were  _ you _ pointing to it?”

“That’s the one I’m getting.”

The artist grinned at the two of them. “Not together, eh?” She looked over the design and nodded. “Alright, make your way over to the chairs I got set up for the two of you. Where are you wanting ‘em?”

“Forearm,” they said, again in unison.

Draco shot Harry a scowl. “Left.”

“Right,” Harry shot back with a half-grin.

“Right then,” she said with a grin. “Come on, come on. Let’s go then. You’re first, chosen boy.”

Draco watched Harry wince as the two settled into the chairs next to each other. “That obvious, huh?”

“You hear ‘im, mate? ‘That obvious,’ he asks. Like I’m not going to notice when Harry bloody Potter walks into my shop, yeah it’s that obvious.” She sat him down and started to trace out the design gently on his arm and Draco watched as she took out the… Oh dear. That looked incredibly sharp. “Alright, pony up.”

She started the process and Harry hissed, his left arm shooting out and grasping Draco’s right hand tightly. Draco’s eyes widened, and Harry tried to shoot him a grin, though. “Twinges a bit- Ahah. Yep. Really twinges.” He squeezed Draco’s hand hard enough he thought he might break it.

“You gonna be alright there, love?”

“Yep. Just fine. I am great. You great, Draco? I’m  _ great. _ ” Suddenly, Draco was beginning to have second thoughts. But then… He would never hear the end of it from him.

“Peachy,” Draco said, suddenly feeling quite ill. This may have been his biggest blunder in a long while.

Once Harry felt as though his arm hadn’t burst into flame from the pain - thanks to a potion and a spell - he Flooed into the Burrow again to show off his new decoration. “Hey,” he said with a grin. “Harry’s home.”

“Harry!” Oh, Hermione was there, this time! And Arthur! He hugged Hermione tight, beaming at her. “It feels like it’s been too long. Ron tells me you quit the Aurors. I’m happy for you!” Well, at least someone was. It had felt like that had turned everyone in the family against him.

“Thanks, Hermione,” he told her. “Yeah. I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing.” He pulled away from her, grinning at seeing Luna was there again. “Hey, I got a tattoo,” he blurted, unable to withhold his good news for any longer.

Hermione seemed surprised, but most everyone kept asking Harry to show it off. All except for Molly, who seemed to have a distaste for tattoos, but she was a bit more old-fashioned. He wasn’t entirely sure. “Well,” Ron said with a grin. “Let’s see it, then!”

Harry held his arm out for everyone to look over. Ron held his arm. “ _ Wicked. _ ”

Luna, Ginny, and George stood to see it much better, while Hermione stared at his new tattoo with one of her thinking looks. “It’s very…”

“It’s something,” Ginny said with a nod, trying to act enthusiastic. “Definitely something.”

“I don’t understand it,” Luna finally told them all, still looking at it. Everyone else nodded along like they agree- Wait. Did they not get it?

Harry’s face fell as he looked at the rest of them. “Wait… You guys don’t get it?” He looked around at their faces, but saw that Ron was frowning at everyone else, too.

“What do you mean you don’t get it? It’s a compass! A  _ moral _ compass!”

“Ron, are you entirely sure you know what a moral compass is?”

Their arguing had Harry laughing. “He’s pretty spot on, Mione. That’s probably what I’d call it. Here, look, it’s magic!” He held his arm out further, grinning wider as the needle swung every so slightly, staying on north. “It points north when I’m doing something for myself, to make myself happy, and it points south when I’m putting what other people want over what I need.”

Hermione’s eyes widened before she smiled. “Oh, Harry, that’s wonderful. It’s about time you put more care into what’s important for you, rather than for anyone else.”

“Thanks, Hermione.”

“You know,” Ginny said loudly to grab everyone’s attention. “Luna was just telling me about someone else that got a tattoo, recently.”

They turned towards her, Harry raising an eyebrow. “I know Luna got one. That’s how I went and got-”

“Malfoy.” Oh. Oh, Ginny was gonna make something out of  _ that? _ “In fact, I heard that you and Malfoy got yours done at the same place, at the same time.”

George frowned at his sister. “Really? That priss went and got himself a tattoo? What’d he get?”

Harry couldn’t stop himself from giving a nervous laugh. “It’s- You know, George, it’s funny you ask that. I really couldn’t remember if I tried-”

“He got the  _ same thing _ as you?!” Oh, jeez, alright Hermione.

“Alright, so he might have gotten a compass, too, but that’s not like it means anything. Maybe it means something different to him, yeah? I don’t know why he went and got it! He was already at the shop by the time that I got there!” But already, it didn’t seem like any of the girls were listening, already talking about how it couldn’t be a coincidence that Harry and Draco got the same tattoos at the same time. “ _ Girls, _ ” he groaned.

Ron patted his back, giving him a smile. “It looks good, mate.”

Looking back down at his arm, he grinned again. “Yeah… Yeah, it does.”

When Draco got back to the Manor, he was surprised. He found himself actually eager to show his mother what he’d done. Looking around, he saw that she wasn’t in the sitting room, which of course made plenty of sense. These days she preferred to avoid the common areas where he’d most often been. Heading up the stairs, Draco looked down at his arm again. The Dark Mark was a raised ridge, but with the tattoo covering it, he smiled as he made his way to his mother’s study.

He raised his arm to knock on her door. “Mother, I’m home!”

“Draco, darling,” he heard from within the room before his mother was opening the door. “You never did tell me where you were going, or what you planned to…” His mother stopped herself, having already caught the difference in his appearance.

Suddenly, Draco was much more nervous as he held his arm out to her. “It’s… it’s a muggle tattoo. No magic. Aside from taking the pain away.”

His mother gently took his arm in her hands to look it over properly. “It hurt, didn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yes, it did. But not nearly so much.”

“And you’re happy?” She met his eyes, and seemed to be searching for something, finally smiling when she seemed to find it.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well then, darling, that’s all that matters to me. Your happiness, and your health. Tell me about it, now. Why did you decide on a compass? What made you decide on a tattoo? Where did you have it done?”

Draco laughed as Narcissa pulled him into her study and sat the both of them down. “Luna gave me the inspiration for it, I suppose. She pointed me to a nice parlor in Knockturn. A witch applied it for me. Her name was Solstice.”

“Well, she sounds quite lovely. Why a compass, dear?”

“I thought of it as… As a moral compass. My own, through my childhood, was always skewed, so hopefully a more permanent reminder will help me to remember to not stray from the path.”

She held his hands tightly, her smile widening and seeming to warm him from the inside out. “That sounds wonderful, dear. I’m happy you’re making these decisions.”

Before either of them could say anymore, an owl was flying up to the window and pecking its beak at the glass to get their attention. Both of them jolted at the sudden sharp noises, turning to the window. “Mother, were you expecting any mail?”

“No, dear.” Draco approached the window and let the owl in. Taking the letter from it and allowing it to rest of the desk, his eyes widened. “It’s for me.” Cautiously and carefully opening the envelope, he began to take the letter from it. “It’s from Harry Potter.”

His mother’s eyebrows hitched. “Really, dear? What’s it say?”

_ Draco, _

_ Nice bloody tattoo, eh? Yours still twinging? Nah, you probably got all those fancy pain potions and spells. We should meet for lunch. We must have one or two things in common, if we can agree on tattoo choices, yeah? _

_ Looking forward to seeing you. We’ll meet at the Leaky on Saturday at one. Don’t keep me waiting. _

_ Harry _

Draco had to read it over at least three times. Harry…  _ Harry _ wanted him to go to lunch with him? Maybe even wanted to make nice with him and be… friends? “He wants to meet for lunch.”

“Oh, Draco, that’s such good news! There is hope for the two of you yet, isn’t there?”

Allowing himself to smile, he nodded as he held the letter tighter. “Yes, mother. I suppose there is.”


End file.
